Ian Narbeth

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Yes, Jack, with friends like Red Alex Sobel (who proposed clause 11), tenants don't need enemies.... Read More

My apologies, everyone for setting a hare running. I see that Pennycook later said:

"My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) made a strong case for new clause 11 on acting to limit guarantors. I appreciate fully that obtaining a guarantor can be difficult for some prospective tenants, and I understand the reasoning behind his amendment. However, I am also mindful that in some instances the use of guarantors can provide good landlords with the assurance necessary to let their properties to tenants who may otherwise find it difficult to access private rented accommodation. For example, there are those with a poor credit history—the kind of tenant who the shadow Minister worries our rent-in-advance amendments will harm. Having considered this issue in great detail, I ultimately concluded that limiting guarantors could inadvertently make life more difficult for certain types of renter. That said, I will keep the matter under review, and I am more than happy to engage in a dialogue with my hon. Friend about this in the weeks and months to come."... Read More

Possibly Peter. That will lead to the absurdity of tenants having to pay 13 lots of 4 weeks in advance which will be inconvenient for employed tenants paid monthly.... Read More

I wish I were joking! The Labour fools are taking us all for fools.... Read More

Don't hold your breath, Peter. There will never be such a clause. Landlords will have to defend themselves if the LA takes action. The tenants won't be required to leave. The best landlords can hope for is that the LA will leave them alone if it can be shown that the work cannot be done without vacant possession and that the tenant will not co-operate.... Read More

You are right Jo and most tenants will stay for longer. Unfortunately, no landlord and no lender can be confident of a rental stream. That said with my HMOs, a lot of the tenancies are periodic and so the tenant can leave on one month's notice. I appreciate it's not the same as a whole property becoming vacant.... Read More

On the one hand, Government complains that tenants were having to move too frequently. On the other, they will all have rolling break clauses on two months' notice.
Tenants will not be able to commit to stay longer. So, no discount for agreeing to a 2 or 3 year contract. Instead, rents will probably rise to reflect that the tenant has a very flexible deal and the landlord has little security of income and may be paying more fees to his letting agents.... Read More

There are numerous problems with the requirement to achieve an EPC rating of C. These include:
1. Some properties cannot be upgraded except at disproportionate cost.
2. Many properties cannot be upgraded with a tenant in occupation.
3. Installing internal wall insulation will reduce in size already small rooms. Complete redecoration will be required.
4. The message from Government to landlords is: we will fine you heavily if you don't achieve a C rating, unless
5 possibly, there will be exemptions if the landlord tries but fails to achieve a C rating after spending an arbitrary sum - mooted at £10,000 per property.
6 Said arbitrary sum will not include cost of redecoration, loss of income whilst work done or the cost of re-housing tenants.
7 Because of the shortage of tradesmen, there will be delays in works starting and the cost of upgrade work will increase disproportionately. The arbitrary sum won't buy as much next year as this year.
8 Although landlords may be protected if a tenant refuses to allow access, nothing in the RRB or Government statements makes this clear.
9. If local authorities are to be charged with granting exemptions to landlords who cannot achieve a C rating, it will be low priority for them to help landlords out. Should landlords continue to rent out property with a D or E rating in the hope of an exemption? If, months after D-Day, they do not get an exemption the fine could exceed the income from letting. Will they be repeatedly fined?
10. No minister is saying to tenants: you must co-operate with your landlord and if you don't then you have only yourselves to blame and we will not punish your landlord.
11. Tenants will be evicted so that landlords can sell in order to avoid being fined. There will be fewer homes to rent leading to more homelessness etc., etc., etc. I am sure others can add to the list.
Solar panels (which are ALWAYS) listed on PC recommendations do not improve energy efficiency. A landlord could pocket the money from selling electricity.
If Milifool wants to lower bills and provide warm homes, how about being sympathetic to the problems landlords face? How about giving grants or tax incentives (e.g. double allowance for expenditure on improvements) instead of threat after threat after threat?... Read More

With apologies for the length of this but I quote David Simmonds MP (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) in yesterday's debate on the Renters Rights Bill:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-01-14/debates/E7CB5480-DDD4-4F24-AB48-E957C964DC5A/Renters%E2%80%99RightsBill#
I will set out my responses, and the rationale behind a number of the amendments that we have tabled, which will be the subject of debate and votes this afternoon.
Clearly, legislation is about striking the right balance. This afternoon, we will recognise—as we have done in our contributions to debate on this issue—the impact that the Bill will have on tenants, landlords and the stakeholders whom our amendments seek to protect. I highlight in particular the impact on students; on financially vulnerable tenants, such as those with low credit scores; on tenants who have pets; on small landlords, who are themselves vulnerable to financial shocks; and of course on other groups, such as agricultural workers and those with work-related accommodation, including NHS workers, military families and school staff, all of whom were mentioned in Committee and will, I am sure, be covered again later. All our amendments have sought to address practical issues, such as ensuring that when work is required on a property and a tenant is reluctant to allow the landlord in to carry out that work for whatever reason, there is sufficient freedom and flexibility in the legislation to ensure that the work can take place.
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Although there have been substantial areas of agreement on the Bill, much of which takes forward work that started under the previous Government in their Renters (Reform) Bill, we have concerns that it creates significant new problems for the availability and affordability of accommodation in the private rented sector. That sector, we must not forget, enjoys the highest tenant satisfaction of any private tenure: 82% of private renters say that they are satisfied with their accommodation.
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[In reply to a question whether s21 should have been abolished sooner]
I say gently to the hon. Lady that had Labour-run Lambeth council not recently rushed to put 200 of its own people on the streets using section 21, because it is concerned about the impact that the Bill will have on its housing situation, that would have more credibility. It is clear that this is a difficult situation in all parts of the country. There is a significant shortfall in emergency accommodation in London in particular, and a rising cost attached to it there, just as other areas of the country have a surplus of accommodation. That is all part of a complex picture. We need to make sure that everything works efficiently and effectively together, and it is absolutely right that we set out our concerns about whether the Bill goes far enough in all areas towards addressing those issues—and about whether, in some cases, it goes too far.
I touched on the impact of the black hole in local government funding. Another area that is driving significant pressure is the Government’s approach to asylum. They are granting refugee status faster, so people are being pushed out of the doors of Home Office asylum dispersal accommodation and on to local housing waiting lists. I am sure that many hon. Members in this Chamber will have been lobbied by their local authority about the impact of that additional pressure—those additional people, who under our laws are perfectly entitled to that housing—on supply in their area. All those things have a huge collective impact on the pool of available housing.
Of course, as we have seen in the news, the declining confidence abroad in our economy is reducing the number of overseas students. That makes it more important than ever to support thriving student accommodation through tenancies that address students’ needs properly—especially the needs of students who are older, have families, or are studying for higher degrees and have a fixed commitment to a location. All those requirements need to be addressed effectively in this legislation.
Does the Bill in its new form rise to those challenges? It is clear that it fails to ensure that landlords can recover their property quickly when they need to. That reduces their incentive to rent it out, especially for small landlords. If the hon. Member for Hampstead and showing location of Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) needs to recover some of her property portfolio to return it to another owner, will she have the assurance under this Bill that due process is available to her? The Bill fails to ensure a flexibility and freedom of contract that allows tenants and landlords to agree a deal that suits them both. Students wanting to book accommodation for a guaranteed period of two years—or shorter or longer—and those moving to a new location for a fixed-term work contract require opportunities and flexibility that are taken away by this legislation.
The Bill takes away landlords’ opportunity to make allowances for financially riskier tenants, such as those with a poor credit record, through rent in advance or other safeguarding arrangements that give the landlord confidence that they will not lose out. That locks financially vulnerable people out of the rental market. The Bill also puts enormous obligations on local councils—one of the biggest additional sets of burdens and expectations in generations—and there is no real clarity yet on how it will be resourced, at a time when all the wider uncertainties that I have described add up to a great deal of additional cost. The Bill also fails to provide the necessary assurance that tenants who have pets and need to access insurance as part of their tenancy conditions will be able to find affordable insurance. That is dealt with in our new clause 21. More concerning still, the Bill is a missed opportunity to provide this House with a proper impact assessment, or the assurance of a future review that would give us really good evidence on which to base our decisions. Our new clause 20 would address that shortcoming, and the House will have the opportunity to vote for it shortly.
Let me give an example of where there is significant uncertainty. In some of the political knockabout, the Government have sought to blame their predecessor for court delays, while claiming that there are no delays worthy of regard in the passage of this Bill, which loads more regulation on to the sector. Both of those things cannot be true simultaneously, so let us properly assess the impact of the Bill before we legislate. There is a lot of good will—for example, on the point about tenants with pets being able to access the accommodation that they need. We do not want to find ourselves returning to this issue in the House because the legislation failed to achieve what we had hoped.
Clearly, it is the role of this Chamber to scrutinise and question, and it is the role of the Opposition to oppose when we cannot see that the legislation before us will result in an improvement in the lot of the people of this country. A pattern is emerging. The Government came after the farmers. They came after the pubs. They came after the small businesses. They came after the private schools. They came after our local councillors. Now this Bill, in its new form, comes after our tenants and our landlords. It is very clear from the number of Government amendments, which the Minister referred to, that the points we made in Committee about the many shortcomings of the Bill that need to be addressed were not lost on the Government.
I return to the point that even a Labour council—a bastion such as Lambeth, led by the Labour chair of London Councils—is rushing to use section 21 to evict its own tenants in advance of this Bill because of the impact it will have. A Labour council and a Labour Government are putting their own people out of their homes.
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I know that the Minister is no Corbynista—we have certainly learnt that in the debate; in fact, I even discovered that he has named his dog after Clement Attlee, who I assume is a great political hero—but Government new clauses 13 and 14 will make this Bill so much worse for prospective tenants. Many of us will have had constituents come to our surgeries who are turning their life around. They have got a job, an income and some savings, but they do not have a good credit record, and they face being locked out of the housing market because the necessary flexibilities and measures that would address that credit score concern are effectively prohibited. Foreign workers coming to the UK, needing to access accommodation and provide sufficient guarantees; foreign students; people who are retired and looking to downsize to a rental property; and people who, for family reasons, cannot access a guarantor will all find themselves significantly disadvantaged by Government new clauses 13 and 14, which increase the risk to landlords by taking away mitigations and take away people’s freedom to reach a contract and an agreement that suits them.
I know that Labour Members are very keen on asking Conservative Members for apologies, so I am going to conclude with one.
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I am afraid that I will not be able to go through all the private tenants individually, but the apology will be fulsome. I say to those in the private rented sector, 82% of whom are very satisfied with their accommodation, that I am sorry that they will be faced with the mess that this Bill will create, whether they are seeking to rent their first home or need to move to a new one.... Read More

And further to Peter Merrick's point, many on the Left think that all private landlords are evil, rich barst**ds who sit on a tropical beach counting their rent and that them losing money is of no importance.

Sadly, many tenants, who are finding life tough now will find it even tougher when persecuted landlords leave the market and the supply of houses to rent reduces. It's lose-lose, which is what one expects from socialist policies.... Read More

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Corporates are not interested in the semi-detached house in Macclesfield or Middlesborough renting for £875 a month. Only PRS landlords are. Even if, as Dylan Morris says, Blackrock are in contact with Labour, they are just not interested in "secondary" or "tertiary" quality properties.... Read More

Patricia, the "corporate Build to Rent sector" are private landlords as opposed to councils or social landlords. New built to rent properties are more expensive to rent than existing stock.

Whatever, else Labour is doing, it is not deliberately seeking to raise rents for tenants. Its policies will do so and an (undesired though foreseeable) outcome of the Renters Rights Bill will be a reduction in supply and an increase in rents.;... Read More

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Peter, you are right. A question that the Tories never answered - and that idiot Michael Gove probably never asked - is, if s21 is such a bad thing, was it ever thus?

The rental market before the Housing Act 1988 was stultified. The Rent Acts kept tenants in houses unto the third generation (i.e passed from parents to child to grandchild). Tenants couldn't move to take up a new job or had to pay for bed and breakfast near their new job.

Section 21 opened up the market and allowed tenants the flexibility of moving and not having to stay in their Rent Act protected house.

I posted on this forum about the abolition of s21 five years ago: https://www.property118.com/removal-of-section-21-housing-act-1988/
I stand by every word.... Read More

Spot on, Julian. This in turn will establish higher "market rents" for an area which means that rents on new lettings and on review will be higher than they would have been.

What next? Outlaw auctions. Set a standard price for all goods and services, Soviet style?

Love the joke about Socialist hands :-)... Read More

Angela Rayner says: “We want to work with landlords to make sure they can bring their homes up to standards." Good.
How about some tax relief to cover wear and tear as we used to have? Grants for improvements to insulation or installation of solar panels?
She also says: "There are some incredibly decent landlords out there." It is noteworthy that she does not say: "Unfortunately, there are some incredibly bad tenants out there. We want to work with landlords to ensure such tenants can be speedily evicted so that landlords are not left out of pocket. We also want to ensure that decent homes are not trashed by antisocial tenants."
Come, on Angie, It's the truth and you know it. Why not say it? That would encourage landlords to work with you far more than the threat of even more fines.... Read More

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"In a government press release, it was claimed that Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions are one of the leading causes of homelessness, but gave no figures to support this claim."
Even if figures were given, this is a fallacious argument. It appears on the surface quite reasonable but, and it's a big but, s21 notices do not causes homelessness. It may be true that many, perhaps most of the people who are homeless received a s21 notice. So, it is argued, the notice has caused them to be homeless.
This is a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. "After this, therefore because of this."
If someone is evicted and there are available affordable houses, then they can be re-housed. The housing market is dynamic with tenants ceasing to be tenants, newcomers becoming tenants, rental properties being added and rental properties being taken off the market. The problem we have is an imbalance between demand and supply. Importantly, the population as a whole is growing - largely because of net immigration - and the supply of housing is either going down or not increasing at a commensurate rate. This in turn leads to rents going up which makes it more costly for tenants to rent.
The call for mediation implicitly acknowledges that there are reasons for landlords seeking to terminate the landlord/tenant relationship. Commonly, it's rent arrears, damage to the property or anti-social behaviour.
Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister says he sees no evidence of landlords leaving and argues that the size of the PRS had ‘doubled since the early 2000’s’. So what? The demand for rented accommodation has grown even more. There are fewer landlords now than if successive Government had not imposed extra costs, risk and burdens on landlords and encourage a culture of vilification. That in turn leads to a shortage of property to rent. Combined with increasing demand from a growing population and we have a sort of game of musical chairs and increasing homelessness.
The next time someone tells you that s21 notices are the cause of homelessness, explain to them the post hoc fallacy. By way of analogy, ask them if redundancy notices cause unemployment and if they think that banning employers from issuing redundancy notices would tackle unemployment.... Read More